Being Fine – Bentley 13

[For back story go here: Story so far at 12 June 2020 and more recents Bentley episodes]

On Friday, Bentley took all the notifications of the money he was supposed to be liable for and stuck them in the bottom of Covid’s litter tray. He knew when he was being played and he knew  how to play back. He also knew Covid would treat these documents in the way they should be treated, in a way only a cat can.

That said he wasn’t entirely certain where the paperwork was coming from. Certainly someone had taken an interest in him, perhaps had even developed a grudge. It was hard to be more specific than that, given that there had been no further communication from anyone. Just the requests for money he didn’t have. Oh, he suddenly thought, except that he did have the money, didn’t he?

The twenty grand stayed untouched, shy of a taxi fare or so, but still in tact. There was a chance that someone had discovered he had this and was now trying to fleece him. Did that mean it was Darren again, aggrieved that his erstwhile employer had started proceedings against him after he’d taken his so called ‘fee' for work requested? Or now Dark Shadow and Vertibrain were working for him, were they also thinking he might be a quick route to financial gain? Or was Lawrence even trying to do some kind of test on him – a double bluff to see if he held on the the money? Bentley wouldn’t put it past any of them. And this was what you got, he reflected, when you started trying to straighten things out in your life – nothing but complications.

Still, at least today he had not received any notification of any kind, so perhaps the danger was over and he could get back to the matter in hand. What all of this amounted to, still, was the need to get to the south coast and track down someone, or even many people, who could provide him with answers. He still needed to know what Lawrence was up to, so he could set up the protection he needed to safeguard his own life and the health and wellbeing of Shiela and Natalie. 

He logged on to his email and swore as he opened the in-tray to find 32 new messages, split evenly between the usual spam from someone in a far away country seeking someone to look after a substantial sum of money while they looked after an elderly and much loved relative (nearly there already, thought Bentley) and those demanding money for protection of his email domain and several other websites which he did not own. He couldn’t tell if these were spam or yet more interference from his unknown combatant.

Either way, Bentley wasted no time in highlighting everything and deleting it. And that meant the new email from George was staring him in the face.

– Hello, said the message.

– Wanted to check you’re OK. Has been lovely to see you again recently. Take care and hope to see you again soon.

– Best wishes, George.

Bentley was sent into overdrive. Here was the answer he was looking for. In train travel, as with life, if you waited long enough you could make the connections that would give you the direction you wanted. There didn’t have to be a straight route to follow, you didn’t always need a mainline from A to B, sometimes the journey was longer and more interesting for all that. But wait around for long enough and a train would turn up to get you closer to your goal.

Flicking the web browser towards a darker side of the net, Bentley started hunting around for the resources he needed. The week had seen him being the victim but now he would be the aggressor. It would be he who sent demands, he who was in the driving seat, he who would be calling the shots. Timing was everything.

And that is why on Saturday George received an official demand from on online betting website for a large amount of money. It was money he didn’t think he had ever spent, but there again it did look rather credible.

However, George’s day brightened a little about half an hour later, when he received an email from his friend Bentley, thanking him for his most recent email and asking if he had received any strange demanding emails recently? If he had, said Bentley, let him know and he would be able to give him the right steps to take to avoid having to pay any money to anyone.

And so it was that Bentley cleverly struck down George’s apparent gambling debts, and as the load lifted he promised to do anything for Bentley in return. And that anything, unsurprisingly, involved his van and a couple of motorways heading south.